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Iran Denies Iranian Leader's Holocaust Non-Denial

The media has a crush on Iran's new leader and a raging case of hatred for Israel

I'm not sure what this technically is. Holocaust Denial Denial or maybe Holocaust Denial Denial Denial. But since this actually appears to be a case of the liberal media manipulating a translation, it's actually a lot more meta than that.

The media has a crush on Iran's new leader and a raging case of hatred for Israel so it's naturally trying to skew media coverage that way.

It was reported that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had delivered what his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, never could — recognition that the Holocaust took place — but according to the semi-official Iranian Fars News Agency significant parts of the report are inaccurate.

On CNN.com’s home page Wednesday morning, the main headline asserted that Rouhani, in an interview with network reporter Christiane Amanpour, said that the Holocaust happened: “Iran’s New President: Yes, the Holocaust Happened.”

Fars however, categorically denied the claim that Rouhani addressed the Holocaust by name, saying the network “fabricated” the story, adding the word ‘Holocaust,’ among other conciliatory phrases, to its translation.

In this case I'm going to believe Iran's official propaganda network over our own unofficial propaganda network, which has played fast and loose with the translations of Iranian leaders before.

Furthermore I recall an Amanpour broadcast from Israel in which she falsely claimed that a Muslim cursing Israel in Arabic was actually calling for peace.

The Fars translation is far more plausible. It's a generic, "Yes the Nazis probably killed some Jews, but that's not really our department and I won't actually state that the Holocaust happened" statement that you would expect.

Ahmadinejad's job was to stomp around and act mean. Rouhani's job is to show a more pleasant face. Both men are just there at the whim of Iran's Supreme Leader and their views don't matter all that much.

The problem with Iran is not that it denies the Holocaust. That sort of thing is routine in a region and religion where most people don't believe 9/11 happened. The problem is that it wants to create another one.

The Iranian Amanpour is rather clearly biased on any Middle Eastern issues. But that makes her not too different from most of her profession. Their goal is to sell Rouhani as a reasonable leader we can do business with while forgetting that they repeatedly insisted that Ahmadinejad had no real power when he was holding that same office.

So they're shameless liars. And this is just another lie in their great wall of lies.